Really Abstract Locations

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 12:15 am

Your mine ability actually looks more of like this:

Mines: You are now able to set mines to kill your opponents. Creating a mine requires [INSERT REQUIREMENTS HERE]. Once you've created the mines you may arm and place them at your leisure. As a FOO action, choose one zone and place one mine in that zone. Whenever a creature enters the mined zone on foot, roll 1d6. If this roll exceeds the number of armed mines in the zone, the enemy lucks out and avoids triggering a mine. Otherwise, they trigger a mine and [INSERT GRUESOME LANDMINE EFFECTS]. The number of mines remaining in that zone is then decreased by one. A creature that has been told where the mines are may safely avoid them and not set off any mines when they enter the zone willingly, but does still set them off if forced into the zone by an outside effect.

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:47 am

Grek, that's closer, but as I read it Frank's suggestion was slightly cleverer than that. If there's a mine in Zone 2, when you move into or around in Zone 2 the mine rolls an attack against you. If the attack hits the mine triggers and you suffer the effects. If the attack misses you've avoided stepping on the mine and it's still there.

The attack roll isn't modelling "you set off the mine, now what happens"; the attack roll is answering the question of whether you set the mine off in the first place.

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:53 am

Right... so adding more mines to an existing minefield increases the attack bonus of the minefield, as well as incrementing the #Mines counter. so long as there's at least one mine in the minefield, the minefield gets an attack whenever would be relevant; any time that attack succeeds, damage is dealt, and the #Mines counter is decreased by 1.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:55 am

jadagul wrote:Grek, that's closer, but as I read it Frank's suggestion was slightly cleverer than that. If there's a mine in Zone 2, when you move into or around in Zone 2 the mine rolls an attack against you. If the attack hits the mine triggers and you suffer the effects. If the attack misses you've avoided stepping on the mine and it's still there.

The attack roll isn't modelling "you set off the mine, now what happens"; the attack roll is answering the question of whether you set the mine off in the first place.

I had not noticed that bit of Frank's post. But it's pretty neat. I suspect it would be more satisfying from a player's perspective than purely random chance.

I could see giving the mine a penalty to its attack roll in larger Zones, though.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:56 am

I read it like that too, but, IMHO, an attack roll isn't really appropriate there. I mean, wearing armour isn't going to help you avoid setting off landmines, nor will a shield, or dodging or whatever. If it's any sort of check at all other than random chance, it should be a spot check.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:11 am

Grek wrote:I read it like that too, but, IMHO, an attack roll isn't really appropriate there. I mean, wearing armour isn't going to help you avoid setting off landmines, nor will a shield, or dodging or whatever. If it's any sort of check at all other than random chance, it should be a spot check.

That's only a problem if you're doing AC D&D style, where wearing armor increases your dodge chance. (And if you're doing it D&D-style, then armor preventing you from triggering mines is probably the least of your verisimilitude problems.) If armor gives DR or modifies your Soak roll, then that problem is not nearly as prevalent. You could also have mines make attacks against your Passive Perception score.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:40 pm

Blicero wrote:
Grek wrote:I read it like that too, but, IMHO, an attack roll isn't really appropriate there. I mean, wearing armour isn't going to help you avoid setting off landmines, nor will a shield, or dodging or whatever. If it's any sort of check at all other than random chance, it should be a spot check.
That's only a problem if you're doing AC D&D style, where wearing armor increases your dodge chance. (And if you're doing it D&D-style, then armor preventing you from triggering mines is probably the least of your verisimilitude problems.) If armor gives DR or modifies your Soak roll, then that problem is not nearly as prevalent. You could also have mines make attacks against your Passive Perception score.

Or touch attacks, since that's all it really cares about.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:13 pm

So I get that the difference between ranged and melee attacks in this system would be that if you want to project force as a melee character then you would be forced to actually move into the zone you are targeting and as a ranged character you would have the option of staying in your zone but still projecting force into another zone. The main weakness for a ranged character would be projecting force into his own zone.

Also, do I understand this correctly that characters will always have the option of staying in their current zones no matter what their Tides of Battle dice dictates?

Finally, must there always be 6 zones? Can we actually roll a d100 and have some zones be more likely than others?

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:22 pm

I wouldn't really recommend it. The point of RAZ is that the zones are really abstract - you don't know or care exactly what they represent. If you actually pin down where each zone is, the whole system makes less sense.